Mitsubishi Chemical Announces Technology Breakthrough for Next Generation of Large, Flat-Panel TVs; New OLED Material Promises Development of More Efficient, Less Costly Display Screens

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 20, 2005--Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) today announced that it has developed an Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) device with the highest efficiency in the world in its new blue phosphorescence OLED material.

The new OLED material, which can be produced by a lower-cost, wet-coating process, is expected to open the way to the development of a new class of large flat-panel displays.

“It is far superior to existing lines in terms of efficiency of phosphorescence emission. We expect to have early success in practical applications”

Unlike LCD screens, OLED devices emit light when an electric current is applied and do not require a backlight to function. They consume less power, have a wider viewing angle and display a brighter image with a refresh rate that is a thousand times faster than LCDs.

Current applications of OLED technology are limited to smaller display screens of mobile phones, car audio, portable music players and similar products because of the difficulty applying current OLED technologies to large screens. This problem could be solved with the evolution of Mitsubishi's OLED technology.

Mitsubishi Chemical Group Science and Technology Research Center, Inc. (MCRC) has been developing materials, mainly phosphorescence-emitting layer material, suitable for manufacturing a thin, bright large-screen display. Phosphorescent material has four times greater luminous efficiency in principle than that of fluorescent material, which is widely employed now. This higher efficiency of phosphorescence leads to low power consumption, which is critical for applications using larger screens such as flat-panel television screens. In addition, the wet-coating method enables low-cost processing and makes practical the fabrication of large-area screens, which has been difficult and expensive using standard vacuum deposition processes.

The newly developed OLED device employs MCC's own blue phosphorescence host material (wet-coating type), hole blocking material, and hole injection material to optimize the design of a device to achieve the current efficiency of 30 cd/A at the intensity of 100 cd/m2 (external quantum efficiency: 13%), more than twice that of conventional blue wet-coating type OLEDs.

"It is far superior to existing lines in terms of efficiency of phosphorescence emission. We expect to have early success in practical applications," said Dr. Junji Kido, a professor at Yamagata University and the internationally recognized lead scientist on the OLED project.

Dr. Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, President and CEO of MCRC, stated: "This achievement is a milestone in the development of OLED technologies, because this enables OLED to be applied to flat-panel displays."

Developing improved materials for display screens is one of the five research and development focuses for Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation's management plan, "KAKUSHIN Plan: Phase 2." MCC is pursuing further improvements to its blue OLED material to ensure longer lifetime. Commercialization is targeted by the end of FY2007. In the future, MCC will explore potential applications for innovative lighting products using this technology.